Welcome to "The Factory"
Derek Raymond came as a surprise to me. Why hadn't I ever heard of him before? This novel is the first in his "Factory" series, about a tired and cynical yet stolidly moral detective with a ferocious sense of justice, who works in a thankless job in a remote "unsolved crimes" department of the London police. He takes crime very personally, and when an apparently down-and-out nobody is found murdered, the detective explores the man's life through a series of dictated tapes and discovers a kindred spirit in whose footsteps he follows until the killers are unearthed. Raymond's barely suppressed anger at the world and his pitch-perfect ear for London dialects and dialogue make this a fast and absorbing read.
